Sunday, May 31, 2015

What role does the United States
play in the spread of sectarianism in the Middle East? As a proviso, we need emphasize that the US is
not the progenitor of sectarianism in the Middle East.However, it has engaged in the sin of
“pouring oil on the fire.”Unfortunately, a large number of US foreign policy decisions in the
Middle East have worked to promote sectarian identities. Sectarianism is thus not a "hermetically sealed" political phenomenon, but one that is fueled and nourished both within the nation-states of the region and by forces beyond it.

A history lesson is in order.George Santayana noted many years ago that “Those
who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”Despite the “presentism” of many US foreign policy analysts (see my "10 Conceptual Sins in Analyzing Middle East Politics http://new-middle-east.blogspot.com/2009/01/10-conceptual-sins-in-analyzing-middle.html), history is
not “water under the bridge,” but rather a corrective to current policy by avoiding
the repetition of prior mistakes.Those
who don’t think history matters should remember the saying: Insanity is doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Shah Mohammed Pahlavi

A history lesson is important
here.A key source of the current
sectarianism being promoted by a variety of political forces in the Middle East
today is the long-term US support for the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza
Pahlavi.After the Shah abdicated due to
nationalist pressure in 1951, the US staged a coup d’état that returned him to
power in 1953.

From 1953 until his overthrow in
late 1978, the Shah built a regime in which torture was the modus operandi of
his rule.Peasants were forced off their
land in the name of “land reform” and the “palace elite” prospered while most of
the country did not.

When Iranians rose up against in
1978, it was not to substitute another authoritarian regime, now based in
pseudo-religious garb, for the Shah’s rule but to establish a democratic government
that took the populace’s social needs seriously.Apart from the Kennedy administration’s brief
effort to have the Shah introduce social reforms as part of its “Alliance
for Progress” campaign, the US allowed the Shah to go his merry repressive way.

Imagine what would have happened had
the US put major pressure on the Shah, who was totally dependent on US military
aid and on Western investments for Iran’s economic growth, to implement
democratic and social reforms.What
would the Middle East look like today had Ayatollah Khomeini and his repressive
clique ofclerics and Revolutionary Guards not been able
to gain power and establish the so-called Islamic Republic of Iran?

Saddam Husayn at the front during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War

First, Saddam Husayn’s Ba’thist
regime would have never invaded Iran in September 1980 because it would never
have dared challenge the Shah’s armed forces, particular its US F-14 Tomcat fighter
aircraft.Second, there would have been
no incentive for Saddam’s secular regime to begin mobilizing support
among Islamists in the 1980s to offset the anti-imperialist aura of Khomeini's Islamic Republic regime, a policy that ultimately backfired.

Third, there would have been no Gulf
War in January 1991 or March 1991 uprising (Intifada) by the Shi’a in
south central and southern Iraq (and the Kurds in the northeast) against
Saddam’s regime.While the troops that
surprised the uprising in the south were largely Shi’a, events following the
Gulf War undermined Iraqi nationalism.

Izzat al-Duri-leader of the Faith Campaign

With the suppression of the 1991
Intifada, the imposition of UN sanctions and Saddam’s implementation of the
so-called “Faith Campaign” (al-Hamlat al-Imaniya) in 1993, the regime promoted
an implicit sectarianism as part of its “divide and conquer” strategy in
response to its weakened state.

A combination
of the socially and economically destructive UN sanctions regime, and Saddam’s
policies, pushed Iraqis to increasingly think in terms of identities that were local
and tied to sect or ethnicity.

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 made
no effort to recruit a new Iraqi political leadership that had remained in Iraq
under the Ba’thist regime.Instead, it
relied upon what accurately have been referred by Tareq Ismael and others as “carpetbaggers,” whose
narrow interests made promoting sectarianism the politics du jour.

When the Iraqi political elite saw that
sectarian politics was the new post-Saddam normal, they pursued it with a vengeance,
again with the US largely standing passively by.

The decommissioning of the conscript
Iraqi army in May 2003, one of the first acts of the US occupation Coalition Provisional
Authority, abolished an army that possessed an ethnically, confessionally and
battle-hardened officer corps.While
some officers were supportive of Saddam, most segments of the conscript army
hated the regime for its condescending attitude towards it, infrequent pay and
sub-standard equipment, especially in comparison to elite units such as the
Republican and Special Republican Guards.

Former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki

The selection of the unknown and
untested Nuri al-Maliki to become prime minister in 2006 was more an act of
Bush administration desperation to replace then Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja’fari
who was seen as ineffectual.While
Maliki did suppress the Mahdi Army in 2008, it quickly became apparent that he
was sectarian to the core.Despite
advice from his advisers to withdraw US support, George Bush insisted on continuing to back him
as prime minister

When the secular Shi’i politician, Ayad
Allawi, won the March 2010 national elections, the Obama administration refused
to support him.Fearing that Allawi's strong secular nationalism
(precisely why he received so many votes!) would anger Iran, and lead it to cause more mischief in Iraq, Obama concocted
a face-saving measure in which Allawi was to become head of a new Council of
National Security Affairs and control the Interior and Defense ministries.

The US was never serious about implementing
this plan.Maliki agreed to it but
immediately ditched it once he had secured a second term as prime minister.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration never mentioned it again.

If the Bush administration facilitated
the rise of sectarian politicians after the 2003 invasion, such as the Hakims – the leaders of the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIIRI) which later became
the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) – Maliki, Ahmad Chalabi and Masoud Barzani
and clan - the Obama administration compounded this destructive policy.When Maliki began selling positions within
the officer corps, thousands of soldiers were forced to give portions of their salaries
to their officers, and the (largely Shi’i) Iraqi troops in Mosul were given the
green light to fleece the local population at street crossing throughout the
city, sectarianism was on a roll.

Da'sh forces celebrating the capture of Mosul in June 2014

If the Obama administration had
cracked done on these actions, as it did after the so-called Islamic State (Da’sh)
seized Mosul and much of north central Iraq in June 2014 when it refused to
provide military support unless Maliki was removed, the Da’sh would not
control one third of Iraq today. The 800-1000 lightly armed Da;sh fighters would have been no match for a standing army of 30,000 men who possessed technologically advanced American weaponry.

Young victims of Syrian Army chemical weapons attack 2013

In neighboring Syria, the Obama administration
passively stood by in 2011 and after as democratic and peaceful protests were turned into a sectarian
civil war by the brutal Asad regime.Asad's army concentrated its attacks on democratic forces, who received little support from the US
and the West, while actually providing support for radical Islamists, i.e.,
trading weapons for oil with the Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) and the
Da’sh. Thus, the Ba’thist regime transformed
the conflict into one where it could pose the alternatives as either the Asad
regime, on the one hand, or a radical terrorist regime, on the other.

No effort was made by the Obama administration
to mobilize an international coalition to take on the Asad regime before the
civil war turned into what it is today – a “war of all against all” with power
in the hands of hardened sectarian forces on both sides of the battle lines.

Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi and Parliament Speaker Salim al-Juburi

Meanwhile in Iraq, Maliki was replaced
by Haydar al-Abadi, a Shi’i politician who spent much time in the UK, has a
Ph.D. in finance and fully realizes the peril facing Iraq.Yet no one hears calls by the Obama administration
for a national reconciliation conference in Iraq in which Shi’a, Sunni and Kurdish politicians
would meet to try and forge a unified front against the Da’sh.

A constant flow of media attention
on the need to forge national unity and supersede sectarian identities, and the
selection of a Special UN Rapporteur for Iraq, whose job it would be to keep up
pressure on those politicians, like Maliki and his clique, who seek to undermine
Prime Minister al-Abadi and pressure the political elite to adopt national policies, has not occurred.

US air strikes on Kobane on Syria-Turkey border January 2015

With Iraq in a particularly precarious
economic situation with the drop in oil prices and hence the oil revenues upon which it is dependent, and the need for US military training and weaponry,
the Obama administration could be much more proactive if it so desired rather
than largely standing on the side lines and viewing the struggle against the Da’sh as
a form of “spectator sport.”Clearly,
the air campaign, in which only 1 in 4 sorties actually result in bombs being
dropped, due to lack of spotters on the ground, has been ineffective, as the recent
Da’sh victories in Ramadi and Palymyra indicate.

Sectarianism is not a “primordial”
quality of Middle Easterners.People do not
emerge from the womb as “sectarians.”What is actually occurring is the spread of socially and politically constructed
identities by sectarian entrepreneurs who capitalize on fear, economic marginalization,
and displacement to politicize ethnically social identities based in ethnicity and/or confession.

In this manner, these elites promote a lack of trust among ethnic and confessional
groups that supports their goals of increased power and economic wealth. As Rosner, Quilan and Greenberg national polls demonstrated in 2010 and 2014, sectarianism ranked low (11% in 2010; 22% in 2014) among the concerns of ordinary Iraqis. Physical security and jobs and unemployment ranking far beyond all other concerns(56%/36% in 2010; 52%/45% 2014).

No one should be so naïve as to think
that the US can make Iraq, or Syria, whole again.Nevertheless, there is a need for a new
US policy that brings together a large coalition of regional and non-regional partners who seek to prevent the spread of terrorism. This coalition should include antagonists
to see if common ground can be found to crush the Da’sh before it makes more headway
in the Middle East (and Africa).

As the US largely stays in the shadows,
other powers in the region are acting.Saudi Arabia and Turkey, with support from Qatar, are arming new
Islamist forces, such as the Islamic Army (Jaysh al-Islamihttp://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jaish-al-islam-piece-918366283). Iran's "Islamic Republic" supports the Asad regime and competes with Saudi Arabia, which is creating another failed state and promoting sectarian identities in Yemen, as both regimes seek to "out sectarian" the other.

Does the US, its regional allies (beyond Saudi Arabia and Turkey), and the West want to see a radical Islamist regime take power in Syria? The Obama administration must step up to the plate. Tamping down sectarian identities should be a top administration priority with new thinking about the region at its core. Obama remains a spectator at
the US and the region’s peril.

About Me

Eric Davis is Executive Director, MA Program in Political Science - Concentration in United Nations and Global Policy Studies, Professor of Political Science and the former director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. He is author of CHALLENGING COLONIALISM: BANK MISR AND EGYPTIAN INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1920-1941 (Princeton University Press, 1983; Institute for Arab Development, Beirut, 1986, and Dar al-Sharook, Cairo, 2009); STATECRAFT IN THE MIDDLE EAST: OIL, HISTORICAL MEMORY AND POPULAR CULTURE (University Presses of Florida, 1993); MEMORIES OF STATE: POLITICS, HISTORY AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY IN MODERN IRAQ (University of California Press, 2005; Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 2008; and the forthcoming, TAKING DEMOCRACY SERIOUSLY IN IRAQ (Cambridge University Press). Currently, he is writing a book on the Islamic State and the changing modalities of terrorism in the Middle East. He can be contacted at davis@polisci.rutgers.edu and @NewMidEast